


Not Alone

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2017, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: He knew she was stubborn, had learned it at a younger age.





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Perspicacia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perspicacia/gifts).



Obi-Wan shaded his hand against the setting suns and then sighed once he could truly see the figure approaching on a speeder bike. Why was _she_ here?

No, he knew the answer to that. He had learned, in the grief of his master's death, that she was a very strong-minded person who believed in getting exactly what she wanted. Despite the age difference, she had been very direct in offering comfort in Theed… and then merely held him when he swore that comfort of that kind could not help him.

"Sabé," he greeted as the bike came to a stop outside his hut.

"Bail turned me away from caring for the girl," she said after a bare nod. "I will not be turned away from helping you watch over the boy. My face is too well known, and I prefer not to live in make-up the rest of my days."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, and her jaw firmed in resolved stubbornness. He then sighed again, and turned to go in. "You'll need to camouflage the bike, and weight it down strongly."

He could hear her moving to do just that against the hut, and resigned himself to the Nabooian's designs.

* * *

"You haven't interacted with him at all since dropping him off?"

Two weeks, and Obi-Wan had yet to get past the instinctive defensiveness when Sabé asked him questions.

"He's just an infant."

Just.

That word was such an insult to everything Luke Skywalker was, both on a personal and a galactic level. He sat down at the table, and reached for the jug of milk.

"The longer you go without making a place for him in your life, making you a part of their lives, the harder it will be." Sabé joined him, looking over the meager fare he had cooked this night. "I can help hunt and cook, you know? I am more than just a political aide."

"I know that. You ran Padmé's intelligence service."

There was an awkward pause, as he hurt all over for that death. Why had she died?! Sabé had looked down, then back up with a sharpness to her features.

"For all the good it did her," she said. "I didn't warn her early enough, didn't begin to find the threads until too late."

"None of us saw the end in time, Sabé. You cannot let it punish you now. We can only go forward."

"Forward, Obi-Wan Kenobi, means keeping a hand in on that boy," Sabé informed him. "We will go tomorrow, and take some of the milk to them. We can set it up that we keep them supplied with milk, with textiles once I get the skill in place to make use of your herd's fur, with meat if needed. That will alleviate some of the work on them, and we will have a logical reason to interact.

"It should, also, make them less suspicious of your Jedi intentions toward the boy."

"As you will, Sabé."

* * *

Three months after her arrival, and Obi-Wan had to grudgingly admit that life was somewhat more ordered. Her plan, her natural ability to work with people and find their buttons to push, had gotten them contact with Luke. The blaze of Force energy was still carefully wrapped, secluded in every fail safe that Obi-Wan had been able to work over the infant in their flight from the Empire.

He was no closer to forgiving himself, and did not think he had it in himself to do so.

He had failed the Republic, the Order, his friends… and Anakin.

Protecting Luke was the sole reason he had not yet given completely up.

Sabé, however, never let him wallow in the emotions he failed to release into the Force, as he should have, were he a proper Jedi. She pushed him to help her learn all the tricks and usefulness of having a bantha herd nearby. She had befriended the behemoths as easily as he had.

Granted, like the woman that had been her near-twin in ability and appearance, Sabé had amazing reservoirs of willpower that were frankly astounding. She managed Obi-Wan so adeptly that he never questioned it, not even when he found himself wondering just how he had come to be at a certain task.

"Brooding?" she asked, appearing inside the hut with a basket full of brushed out fur and undercoat felting material.

"Considering the changes in my life," he corrected. "Mostly the last few months."

She considered him for a long time, then came over and set the basket down before joining him on the low-slung couch they had cobbled together.

"You needed someone."

He tried to find a protest, but it would not come.

"I think you may be correct," he said instead, reaching out to cover her hand. She let him, and smiled.

* * *

The nights on Tatooine were peaceful, mostly, and the stars were visible in ways he'd rarely appreciated on other worlds. His gaze swept the horizon, finding nothing but sand and stars to contemplate at the moment. Then his ears caught the sound of his companion coming up atop the hut to join him.

"It's growing cool," he warned.

"No worse than the night air by the lake."

She settled beside him, her thigh and his touching. 

"Does it still hurt, to think of the world you gave up?" he asked her after a long moment.

"Sometimes. More, if I think of her. Deeply, when I consider what the galaxy faces, if we, and the Organas, fail to preserve and train the children into the force of hope they must be."

"There will be other heroes. Like you were for your people, at her side," he chided.

"Or you, for all that it was a trap, all along, were for the galaxy during the war," she reminded.

"There were people hurting. I did help ease that, where I could," he admitted, and for once, he didn't immediately remind himself of all the ways he had failed Anakin.

She took his hand then. "I don't think being a hero is something any seek, or even fully know, until it is all said and done. Nor am I certain our time is yet past, Obi-Wan."

He shifted, leaving that hand in hers, but adjusting to let her sit as closely as she could.

"You may be right. But we can only wait."

"Together."

"Indeed."


End file.
